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<\/a><\/p>\nNoah Wyle in HBO’s “The Pitt.” (Warrick Page\/MAX)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Tuesday\u2019s announcement described the actor\u2019s \u201csmoldering intensity\u201d and \u201cleading-man looks,\u201d while noting that \u201che loves to do the dishes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wyle, 55, told People he initially thought the news was \u201ca classic set-up for a prank.\u201d His wife, Sara Wells, helped persuade him to accept the honor, he said, because she believes his qualities as a husband and father are worth celebrating.<\/p>\n
The actor, who starred in the \u201990s medical drama \u201cER,\u201d is enjoying a career resurgence as Dr. Michael \u201cRobby\u201d Robinavitch, the brilliant, troubled emergency-room physician at the center of \u201cThe Pitt.\u201d The role has earned Wyle two consecutive Emmy Awards for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, along with renewed attention to his own Jewish heritage.<\/p>\n
As JTA reported last year, Wyle drew on his father\u2019s Russian-Jewish background in helping create Robby, his first Jewish character. The doctor wears a Star of David necklace and, in a pivotal scene in the show\u2019s first season, clutches it while reciting the Shema, a central Jewish prayer, during an emotional crisis.<\/p>\n
Wyle, whose father is Jewish and mother is Episcopalian, did not grow up in a religious household. But in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle this year, he said Judaism had become more relevant to his life through the show and that his daughter, then 10, has expressed the most interest to \u201cpick up the mantle of Judaism.\u201d She helped him with the pronunciation of the Shema, he said, and her bat mitzvah has been scheduled.<\/p>\n
Wyle has also brought Jewish history into \u201cThe Pitt.\u201d In an episode he wrote for the show\u2019s second season, a patient with ties to the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n
Wyle said portraying a Jewish character offered an opportunity to present a humanist and healer at a time of heightened antisemitism. \u201cI have come to learn that the world\u2019s knowledge of Jews comes through depictions of them in the media,\u201d he told the Jewish Chronicle.<\/p>\n